From online lottery to stuffing envelopes at home, there are lots of popular get-rich-quick money-making ideas that always pop up. Do they work? Not really. Will you make money doing it? Maybe. But you’d probably make more money from your 9-to-5 job. At least then it’s a guaranteed paycheck. 

  The truth is, there are real ways to make money online​​—millions of people are doing it each day. From freelance digital nomads to savvy marketers to rising entrepreneurs, there are plenty of business ideas you can try at home using your laptop and a solid internet connection. So let’s break down some real ways to make money online.

   How to Make Money Online: 5  Ways

 1. Make money with affiliate marketing.

    Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways to make money online. Throughout the years, its popularity has gone up and down, but it continues to be a stable way to earn through the internet. The best part about affiliate marketing is that you choose from a vast range of companies to partner with, including Shopify, Amazon, Uber, and FabFitFun.

     Affiliate marketing allows you to earn a living by promoting other brands. If you’re a savvy marketer, you can earn a commission from sales by promoting retail products, software, apps, and more. While earning a commission may seem small, keep in mind that you can be an affiliate for several brands and include several affiliate links on a single blog post.

   If you really want to make money online doing affiliate marketing, your best bet is to focus on content marketing. By building out a blog with several pages of high-quality content, you create an asset you can call your own. Strategically place affiliate links in your blog posts to drive traffic to your affiliate partner’s website. 

   2. Start a YouTube channel

   If others can make money from YouTube, so can you. The highest-paid YouTuber is Jimmy Donaldson (a.k.a. MrBeast), who uploads bizarre stunts on his YouTube channel, which made him $54 million in 2021. Another high earner is Jake Paul, who’s made $45 million on YouTube by sharing high-energy prank videos and boxing content. His YouTube (and boxing career) fame helped him use his influence to make money online beyond his YouTube earnings.

   Your YouTube channel should focus on a single niche, so you can build a strong, loyal audience. For example, you can create makeup tutorials, stream video games, review products, teach skills, create prank videos, or anything else you think there’d be an audience for.

    The secret to making money on YouTube is to create content that people want. Create witty headlines to entice people to watch your videos, and use keywords in your description to optimize for YouTube search. Once you’ve reached the 1,000-subscriber milestone, you can officially monetize your channel with YouTube ads.

  3. Create an online course. 

     Selling courses is one of the best ways to make money online. If you’re an expert on a subject, you can monetize your knowledge by creating courses online. You can sell your course on Udemy or, if you already have your own audience, through your own website. Some entrepreneurs earn as much as $5,000 per month with online courses.

   To create a popular and successful course, take inspiration from trending courses in your niche. Then, look at the reviews. What are the aspects that people praise, and what are the things people hate? How can you create something better than what’s already been created? Focus on creating content that solves the biggest complaints while emulating the positive aspects people rave about.

 The platform you sell your course on will determine how to best make money. If you sell your course on Udemy, you don’t have to do much to promote it. You can almost set it and forget it. Maybe promote it to some blogs or on social media networks. However, if the course is hosted on your own website, you might want to run ads to promote the course. You can also build an email list to promote future courses without needing to pay for marketing.

  4. Publish an e-book

   With Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, it’s never been easier to publish an e-book. All you need to do is write the e-book, format it, create an e-book cover, publish it, and promote it. In 2013, I created several e-books on Amazon, and even though it didn’t make me rich, I still made some money from it.

 You can choose to hire a writer for your e-book, a graphic designer to design the cover, and a manuscript editor to eliminate errors from the content. When researching the topic, focus on keywords based on popular searches on Amazon. I often use the Keyword Tool, which allows you to find the words people use while searching, so you can craft your title around them

 To generate sales for your e-book, focus on marketing tactics that are proven to attract customers. For example, you can give the first few copies of your book away for free. This helps you create buzz on social media and get some reviews, which helps you gain customers via social proof. Other effective strategies for promoting your e-book include influencer marketing and video campaigns. 

 5. Consider freelancing

  The easiest way to make money online is to take your current job in your 9-to-5 role and do it online instead. For example, if you’re a writer, administrative assistant, graphic designer, teacher, developer, etc., you can market these skills and find clients online who are willing to pay you to apply them.

  There’s a never-ending list of job platforms for each type of freelancer, too. For example, freelance writers can apply for jobs on specific online writing job boards, but also on general freelance websites like Fiverr, Freelancer, Upwork, and all the others. If you find that your skills can’t be directly used to create income streams, you can try monetizing other transferable skills you may have.

  To make money online as a freelancer, you need to start by building out a strong portfolio. That may mean doing some free work with some reputable mid-tier brands to start. Once you create a strong portfolio, you can reach out to potential big clients to earn more money online. Remember, freelancing is a numbers game: the more personalized emails and applications you fill out, the more likely you’ll be to get a response back.